Night Mare Read Online Free PDF

va Night,” the woman said around the bit.
    “Do not tease me, mare,” the Horseman said, touching her again with the spurs. “Your dreams can speak clearly.”
    She had to give up that ploy. “He commands the Powers of the Night,” she repeated clearly. “The Night Stallion. He assigns the dreams to be delivered. He sent the message.”
    “The Night Stallion,” the Horseman repeated. “Naturally you equines revert to the herd in the wild state. But he is confined to the night?”
    “To the gourd,” she clarified. “It keeps us secure by day.” Now she wished she had never left it!
    “Explain,” he said. “The only gourd I know is the hypnogourd that has a little peephole. Anyone who sets eye to that is instantly hypnotized and can not move or speak until someone else breaks the connection.”
    “That is the same,” Imbri’s tattered dream girl said, looking woeful. She hated giving so much information to the enemy, but didn’t see how this particular news would help this man. He already knew better than to peek into a gourd, unfortunately. “We night mares are the only creatures who can pass freely in and out of the gourd. All gourds are the same; all open onto the same World of Night. When a person looks into any gourd, his body freezes but his spirit takes form inside and must thread its way through our labyrinth of entertainments. Those who remain too long risk losing their souls; then their bodies will never be functional again.”
    “
So it’s a kind of trap, a prison,” he said thoughtfully. “I suspected some such; I’m glad you are choosing to tell me the truth, mare. How many spirits can it contain?”
    “Any number. The gourd is as large as Xanth in its fashion. It has to be, to contain dreams for every person in Xanth, every night, no two dreams the same. To us in the gourd, the rest of Xanth seems small enough to carry under one of your arms.”
    “Yes, I see that now. Very interesting. We can carry your world around, and you can carry ours around. It’s all relative.” After a moment he had a new question. “To whom were you to deliver your message?”
    Now Imbri resisted, being sure this would affect the conduct of the war. But the Horseman dug in his spurs again, and the pain became so terrible she had to tell. She had never had to endure pain before, for it didn’t exist in immaterial form; she couldn’t handle it. “I was to go to Chameleon with the message for the King.”
    “Who is Chameleon?”
    “The mother of Prince Dor, the next King. She is an ugly woman.”
    “Why not take the message directly to the King?” The spurs were poised.
    “I don’t know!” The dream girl flinched, putting her hands to her sides.
    The spurs touched. Desperately, Imbri amplified.
“
My mission was to be secret! Maybe it was a ruse, to report to the woman, who would relay the message to the King. No one would suspect I was liaison to the gourd.”
    “The King is important, then? Nothing can be done without his directive?”
    “The King rules the human concerns of Xanth,” Imbri agreed. “He is like the Night Stallion. His word is law. Without his word, there would be no law.”
    “Yes, that makes sense,” the Horseman decided, and the spurs did not strike again. “If you reported directly to the King, the enemy might catch on, and know the warning had been given. That could nullify much of its effect. Still, I think it better yet to nullify
all
its effect by preventing the message from being delivered at all. Because, of course, it is an apt warning; your Night Stallion evidently has good intelligence.”
    “He is the smartest of horses,” Imbri agreed in a fragmentary dreamlet. “He knows more than he ever says, as does Good Magician Humfrey.”
    “Intelligence, as in gathering data about the enemy,” the Horseman clarified. “This is the activity I am currently engaged in. But, of course, your Stallion has the night mare network. You mares were peeking into our brains